Eyes Like Yours
by Yami no Ichigo
Summary: AU, SasuNaru, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and really bad titles, I promise it's not the 70's...
1. Take Me Away

Eyes like Yours  
  
By: Torn Little Butterfly  
  
Standard Disclaimers apply; because I can't make one up for myself... lol...  
  
AU, R... ish..., drug abuse, lime  
  
Sneak Peak: "Let's get out of here." Sasuke had said, turning to look Naruto straight in the face, thin lips in a hard white line. "Let's go to a place where no one would know our names." His eyes were sad, longing, wanting with so much fervor what he'd been asking, voice quivering with so much emotion, more than he'd ever heard his friend express and Naruto found that he couldn't resist.  
  
=====  
  
Chap. One: Take Me Away  
  
The hot summer burned at the back of his throat like dark sultry whisky, warmth washing over his unmoving body, wind that was not cool burning trails of feather brushes up and down his bare arms and legs. The voice of the man on the radio sounded heavy and nostalgic against the glimmer music in the back ground. He sang about his loved one, the one that was about to go away, even though he didn't say it in his words.  
  
Naruto closed his eyes against the sun above him, the smell of burning sweets thick in the air, seemingly melting from the hot sun. He heard children laughing, he heard mothers with their sweet songs masquerading as something else, and he heard the sound of the waves washing over the shore. The only cold in his body was from a bottle of Sapporo, beads of water on the bottle glistening in the sun.  
  
Sasuke had disappeared into the crowds of people, and maybe he just didn't want to care, but it seemed so much quieter than when he was beside him saying nothing.  
  
The blond boy sighed, feeling the tan burn into his skin, as if even the flesh beneath would darken and burn, he'd turn around, but he was too tired... too still... maybe he should sleep.  
  
"...You're hair, it's everywhere... screaming infidelities... and taking its wear..." his soft voice running like water over the stones in a brook.  
  
"You know, I really hate that song."  
  
"'s why I sing it, oh Lord of the Rocks..." Whispered Naruto, blond lashes quivering against his will, heart hammering, his breath felt like ash on his lungs, he didn't expect him.  
  
"Original, I've never heard that one." They shared a grin. Sasuke sat down and grabbed the beer from the other boy's moist hand; he took a swig, feeling it in his knees.  
  
"The gig is tonight by the way, at the Silk Blindfold. The Potential Devils are playing. Gaara said he'd be there." Naruto pushed his sunglasses up, and you could see the whisker marks on his cheeks; his lips were quirked and uneven.  
  
"He always is."  
  
Naruto sat up to lean on his elbows, looking at the dark haired boy over the top of his glasses. He grinned, cat like, a smile that said let's have fun before we die.  
  
"So, are you in?" It was like a kiss on Sasuke's skin.  
  
"I always am."  
  
=====  
  
The club was a cold sanctuary, a church to the darkness of people's souls, people moved and prayed to the music that they were fed; a body was just a body in the dark where angels fell and burned their guitars on crucifixes made of metal and wood, bleeding out their love and pain like holy water to the suffering children of god.  
  
Pale green eyes outlined in dark kohl reached out of the vivid darkness of the club, over the waving, swaying bodies that ground against each other; a mockery of love.  
  
"Gaara," Whispered Naruto, harsh and painful through the haze of angel dust and fairy lights that swirled around him, he smiled a smile like the razors he cut himself in the boy's bathroom with.  
  
"Naruto,"  
  
They melded together, not because they loved each other, it wasn't even because they missed each other, but because they felt they had to do it, because there was no other way.  
  
The band was playing, love ballads that struck you down to your knees and made you bleed, a lullaby to those who are already dead.  
  
They danced together, mocking, loving, laughing at the daze at which they saw the world; a woman wearing dark skin and blond hair, eye shadow like stardust, lips like candied apples, beautiful like the whore she was, LA seduced all that came to her, poisoning them with her acrid perfume of smog and sex.  
  
"Let's go..."  
  
The hands that grabbed at the bare parts of his flesh were not just Gaara's, he didn't know anymore, but it felt good, it felt loved... because that's all everyone wanted to be.  
  
A needle appeared out of no where, a smile on Gaara's lips.  
  
"Angel." The blond haired boy said, blue eyes darkening, he spat it out like a curse, like a death wish.  
  
As sudden as it came a needle left his veins, his mouth moved, but he didn't know what came out. Someone was dancing with him, touching him...  
  
He laughed.  
  
"Sasuke..."  
  
Whispers of love to his neck, he knew it wasn't true, hands grasping at the clothes he'd only barely put on, the music burning like a drug in his veins, or maybe it was the drugs in his veins... swirling deep in his stomach...  
  
But that was all he needed, and the band was above him, shining like Gods on a rampage. Neji standing at the front, hair loose, eyes closed, mouth opened wide, brow furrowed, and he looked like an orgasm.  
  
"Not Sasuke, but close..."  
  
Lips brushed against him, hands touching there; Neiji was looking at him, everyone was looking at him, ahh...  
  
The friction where Gaara held him drove him wild, and he felt as if his chest was going to burst.  
  
People say that there are fire works, that there are always fireworks... because that was beautiful...  
  
Naruto saw LA, with her androgynous lips, with her breasts, with her eye shadow. Naruto came.  
  
=====  
  
Hands touched him everywhere, fingers delving deep into the inside of him, mouths attached to places they shouldn't really be.  
  
He heard flashes around and over him.  
  
Laughing voices, wandering hands, his gut twisting, his mouth gagged. He heard the shutting and closing of cameras, heard words he never wanted to hear, cold steel running up and down his veins, never breaking skin.  
  
He closed his eyes, trying to tell himself that he enjoyed this, trying not to wish for someone who wasn't there.  
  
Eyes fluttered, bony fingers digging into his.  
  
"Gaara..."  
  
"Come on..."  
  
Warmth...  
  
=====  
  
The after party was held in a mansion that the guitarist Haku owned, up in Beverly Hills where the other stars held parties just like this one, where they ignored the footsteps of rich maniacs that would creep up at night to touch sleeping bodies and shove cold knives into forcefully quieted flesh.  
  
Roman columns rose up from above the ground, holding up the black painted ceiling that glowed with white Christmas lights to look like the constellations. Music floated up from out of the walls, people were laughing, kissing, talking and dancing slowly all wearing white, slapping the uncovered marble floors with bare feet.  
  
Statues of naked men and women with their arms outstretched to the fake sky of the ceiling flanked doors and windows, kisses of lipstick and wine pressed onto the cold hard flesh, sensual sort of tagging.  
  
Blue eyes took in men and women, a tall man with silver hair, eyes drooping and bored, white crisp suit clashing with the rugged manly look of the man wearing it, surrounded by twittering women, his eyes trained on a shorter man with a pony tail and a cute butt, leaning against a wall as if he didn't care; a girl who looked like she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders, white kimono decorated with silver butterflies falling over her pale shoulders, walking around holding a glass of red wine in limp fingers, eyes looking like Sasuke's only until another girl with multi colored hair and eyes that shone like the backs of beetles touched her hand and filled her with the light from her eyes; another girl with light pink hair, dancing alone until a boy with a mushroom cut slipped in next to her, with a smile and a golden drink.  
  
Naruto leaned on the dark cloth that covered Sasuke's arms, they were the only ones not wearing white, and it seemed fitting, Naruto would have laughed if he could remember how to breathe.  
  
He looked up that the boy beside him, who stood as tall as the statues on his right, skin just as pale as the marble, eyes just as empty.  
  
Sasuke pulled hard on the cigarette in his mouth, sharp cheeks hallowing, then exhaled, watching, with what seemed to be detached interest, the smoke rise up along with the music and laughter, curling towards the stars in the ceiling.  
  
"Sasuke..." Naruto murmured, feeling cold and warm, feeling like the smoke fragile that came from out of Sasuke's cigarette  
  
The other boy looked down on him, eyes reflecting nothing but the blue of Naruto's own.  
  
"I want to go home."  
  
Not even much of a look toward the younger boy, but a setting of thin lips and the sole eyed boy took him in his arms then walked to the door with a blond quivering head tucked into the nook of his shoulder and neck, quiet sobs breathed onto his prominent collar bones.  
  
=====  
  
Sasuke and Naruto lived together, they shared an apartment that was right next to a gas station and was painted a light blue. They lived in the Valley, where it was weird but alright too for two boys to live together, and the manager was a sullen woman with a stomach swollen with child who didn't ask questions but held out her hands with a key nestled in her palm.  
  
There was a pool and a lone palm tree, leaning in over the water, almost as if it would want a taste. Children and lively dogs ran around, laughing and barking, adults with eyes like hawks watching upon them, as if the two of them would try to poison or steal their children.  
  
But Naruto didn't care, because the rent was alright, and he got to stay with Sasuke, who made the best vegetarian sandwiches with sun dried tomatoes and lettuce so crisp and cool you could feel it in your chest, avocadoes and sliced carrots, and the smile that came with that filled his stomach with such light he felt he could live off of that forever.  
  
They never really talked, or asked each other stupid questions. All they knew was that the one bed they had was warm when the other was in it, and even though they hadn't held each other in that way, it felt as if they did, it felt as if they have, over the centuries, over the sands of time been with each other forever, all they knew was that they could stand and tolerate each other, that they couldn't tell each other what to do, and that was enough for them.  
  
They'd been sitting at the table watching the news with the sound off, leaning against each other for warmth, eating miso ramen and potato chips.  
  
Naruto wondered why Sasuke hadn't asked him about what happened yet, or if he'd known all along but still didn't ask; professional courtesy.  
  
"Let's get out of here." Sasuke had said, turning to look Naruto straight in the face, thin lips in a hard white line. "Let's go to a place where no one would know our names." His eyes were sad, longing, wanting with so much fervor what he'd been asking, voice quivering with so much emotion, more than he'd ever heard his friend express and Naruto found that he couldn't resist.  
  
"To a place where no one would know our names..." Naruto repeated, feeling light all of a sudden, like he'd just taken off a heavy back pack after a long day at school.  
  
Sasuke nodded, and so did he.  
  
"Let's go Sasuke..." He murmured just before Sasuke pulled him to his chest, smothering whatever else he'd wanted to say... I'd follow you anywhere...  
  
=====  
  
They walked down the streets of San Francisco, feeling the streets so empty and cold, there were some bums sitting on the street, holding up signs for money or food, or sleeping. They saw a guy with greasy blond hair with as sign that said LIVING WITH AIDS, PLEASE HELP and Naruto couldn't help but feel a tug at his heart, he placed a ten dollar bill and a bag of M&M's into a can beside his feet. The man looked at him and smiled, he had really pretty eyes, even though they were dulled by the dirt on his cheeks and eye lids.  
  
Sasuke held his hand through out the city, eyes of knowing people who couldn't say anything on them. Some of those eyes were wide, like they couldn't believe it, the others jealous and others knowing. Naruto felt like a kid again, even though he still technically was, he hadn't felt like it in a while. He felt safe with Sasuke's hand in his.  
  
They went to the park and bought two little bottles of bubbles and some Vietnamese food: egg rolls and barbequed beef with slim noodles and a sweet amber sauce, and blew bubbles at each other in Golden Gate Park, feeling high on loss of air and each other. It was the first time he'd seen Sasuke laughing.  
  
They checked into a hotel near the center of the city.  
  
Sasuke almost always had an unlimited amount of money, but he'd never tell him where he'd gotten it.  
  
They shared a bed again, this time it was a friendly elderly woman with short cut blond hair and a German accent who'd shown them their keys.  
  
They watched TV, reveling in the fact that even though it was a six hour drive and they were still in the same state that all the channels were different.  
  
They lay on the covers, Naruto getting distracted and looking at the blue sky among the gray of San Francisco out the window. There was almost no sun here, he thought, and all the buildings were packed together as if they were afraid to space out, as if they were scared it would be lonely. The streets were almost all one way, three to four lanes narrowing down to one lane alleys where people's buildings would open up, flower shops and coffee places hidden away except to the eyes of the people who lived there.  
  
Open and closed, like a nun in thigh high black leather boots and a corset underneath her long black robes.  
  
Naruto still held the little yellow plastic milk bottle filled with bubble soap in his left hand, holding onto Sasuke with his right. He tugged on the hand experimentally, wanting to see if the other boy would really turn around to look at him. And he did, though it wasn't surprising, it still gave the blond a little thrill.  
  
"Are we going to stay in hotels forever?" He asked, leaning into the smell of Sasuke's cotton windbreaker, sweet ginger and cigarette smoke. He sighed, filling himself with the feeling of his best friend right next to him, getting high off the boy whose arms were wiry and strong.  
  
"No, we're going to buy a house out here, one of those really old two story buildings in candy colors, the ones on the hill that I saw once when my parents took me here." Sasuke whispered talking quietly, like he wasn't used to talking at all, and was afraid someone would find faults in his voice.  
  
"You've never talked about your parents before..." Naruto yawned, feeling warm and tingly, like he had far too much Pixi Stix and was going to get rewarded for it, but sleepy at the same time, like he was just about to crash...  
  
"Yeah... I'd never thought it'd be important..." He whispered; quiet, like the soft hum of the air conditioner.  
  
Naruto nodded understanding... eyes trained on their intertwined fingers.  
  
His were lightly tanned, almost gold, like the sun shine of the Californian sun was shining down on him and being reflected by his skin, while Sasuke's were pale, the kind you'd see on a silver medallion in the night of a full moon, cold and dusky, ghostly even...  
  
Naruto's fingers let go of the little yellow bottle and it rolled of the blue covers and into the plush carpeting, landing with a barely audible thud, he brought his hands to Sasuke's face, and brushed his fingertips over the freckles forming on the bridge of his nose, on his cheeks that could shape diamonds, on his delicately pointed chin... and he smiled... feeling the sun inside him, feeling it cool and burn on the inside only getting warmed by the heat of Sasuke's darkness.  
  
He leaned in for a kiss, and Sasuke let him, hands never letting go, and for the first time since forever they'd made love to each other; Naruto opening up his light for Sasuke to share in the heat, and Sasuke filling Naruto with pearly moonlight tears.  
  
=====  
  
4/19/04  
  
Chap. One End  
  
Thanks: illusivexpeace, chibipandabear, goldielocks, and nightshade... I love you guys for being there, to push me from behind and threaten me to keep up the blabber... sob all weirdos like me need friends like you!  
  
===== 


	2. Dream

Eyes like Yours  
  
By: Torn Little Butterfly  
  
Standard Disclaimers Apply,  
  
R, Incest, Bad Boy Gaara and his group of hippie accountants, who are not in this chapter but I'm running out of inspiration,  
  
Sneak Peak: Itachi would give him kisses made from out of tangerines and apples, he'd feed him words like cotton candy clouds and stories like black forest cherry cake, whipped cream and bleeding cherries over Sasuke's hands that begged for more. He'd give him roses that smelled of fresh rainbows and orchids that felt like dancing in the rain.  
  
====  
  
Chap. Two: Dream  
  
They'd gone to China town the next day, looking over statuettes of naked men in their full Renaissance beauty, angels with wings made of leaves and flowers, fairy princesses with green and red feathers in their long flowing hair, and witches with eyes like diamonds and claws like steel.  
  
They went into a small shop that sold stink bombs, hats and souvenirs. Naruto laughed at a lighter shaped like a dildo and the owner, a pretty Asian woman with gentle eyes and a slim mouth blushed sweetly. Sasuke took a picture of her and her mother, grinning with his eyes at Naruto as he waved the dildo lighter around.  
  
They walked past a girl with a green and black guitar and wearing cupid wings on a slender back, drum sticks wedged into the back pocket of her Dickies as she serenaded her friends with a powerful voice filled with dark light, she winked an almond eye through strange cut hair at them and licked a tall black haired boy with green eyes and his arms around her waist.  
  
"Don't try to tell me what to do..." she sang, tapping her steel toed boot.  
  
Naruto took a picture of her, an angel with the devil's heart.  
  
"I love you." He said, and she laughed, giving him the finger good naturedly, she reeked of LA punk; Naruto wondered why she was here but the scars on her arms kept him quiet.  
  
They walked by a home for people with AIDS and Naruto felt the tears of their pain deep to his marrow. He looked at Sasuke who raised his eyebrows at him; again, professional courtesy.  
  
He laughed, feeling better, knowing Sasuke felt the same.  
  
They walked into a Chinese restaurant with its name in dulling, peeling letters. It looked like a miniature temple with its walls of festive red and its pointed paper cut roof.  
  
They drank wonton soup filled with sea food and vegetables, ate fried rice that wasn't too oily at all, lemon chicken that didn't taste so strong but crisp and fresh, and fried fish that melted into their tongues; they ordered warm sake and cold beer with their fake ids and Naruto grinned sweetly at the disbelieving waiter who shrugged and gave then what they wanted anyway.  
  
Sasuke left a big tip and Naruto linked their arms, leaning far too close, just to give them all a scare, just to say, "We're together, alright?"  
  
He never felt his heart like this, beating, naughtily happy and fast in his quivering chest.  
  
Maybe this was what happiness was; maybe this was what he had been missing.  
  
They walked around some more, out of China town, seeing the Starbucks' that littered the blocks; almost every other had two, one for each side. He pointed this out to Sasuke who murmured something about a latte. Naruto used his Chucks to kick him lightly on the shins and like this they behaved like children they weren't allowed to be, laughing to the heavens, walking on clouds made of cotton candy and breathing in air filled with the smell of chocolate brownies and melting vanilla ice-cream and listening to sounds of angels giggling behind their backs, kissing them both with fortune and love.  
  
====  
  
They walked the long way to the hotel, forgoing the crowded streetcars and buses, ignoring the honking beetle cars and the silver shoebox vans that speed along side them. They talked about art, what kinds of paints to use on what kind of canvas, and about how one time Sasuke ran away from a tutor who had large paint freckled hands and a beard like the pictures of Jesus. They whispered about the life on a Broadway stage, spotlights that bake you in your own love and fear of the people watching you and about how Naruto once starred as a poet with silk words and pale eyes in search of a muse with soft hands and pouting lips.  
  
Naruto dragged his pant bottoms on the rough hard cement, sandpapering the bottoms of his jeans to become intentionally ripped, his pants already exposing too much skin and a bit of his orange poetry boxers. Sasuke didn't even comment when he tugged harshly on a piece of thread that was hanging the wrong way. He even ran a black painted nail on the golden skin of Naruto's thigh, drawing a silvery cold shiver up the skin that Sasuke had touched and the blond sighed softly, leaning against Sasuke's strong shoulder, a smile quirking on reddening, blushing lips.  
  
They'd stop every so often staring into a shop with large posters of bronzed, sculpted men, draped over gnarled trees that miraculously birthed green apples. Naruto mockingly posed for Sasuke beside the posters, doing a remarkably good job of it too, as he held himself as if he was posing of a world famous photographer, whose eyes he looked into through the shutters in the camera.  
  
When they finally did get to the Hotel Sasuke brought them both onto the roof of the building. The dark haired boy quirking an arrogant smirk before brandishing open the door he picked open using a piece of toothpick he stole from the Chinese restaurant and a safety pin that Naruto used to hold together one side of his shirt.  
  
"You're a terrible attention whore." Naruto snipped as he held onto his shirt, thankful he wore a windbreaker. A laugh, deep and rumbling spilled from out of Sasuke's chest and Naruto looked up surprised, a tinker bell laugh struggled away from him, even though his laugh normally sounded like church bells on Christmas time.  
  
"Yes, yes I am..." He whispered, running a hand through the hair over his eyes.  
  
They stepped over to the edge of the roof, looking down on the people below.  
  
It wasn't a terribly high building, but the hotel was high up enough that if they fell they'd shatter bone and maybe even die. Naruto stepped closer, feeling the pull of gravity in his marrow and in the body next to him, the body that held him back, hands on his waist, mouth near his ear.  
  
"I wish we can stay like this forever." He whispered, bending down to tickle the soft blond hairs on Naruto's neck, and the boy quivered, half closing his eyes, a feeling that was so deep with in him he didn't allow it to get out, struggled.  
  
"Here, on the roof?" Naruto asked, smirking to the outside but feeling like a lone boy in the super market, looking for his lost mother, on the inside.  
  
"No not on the roof but anywhere, anywhere, with you." His voice was the voice of a dreamer, of a poet, of an artist who found a muse and didn't want to let him go.  
  
Naruto nods, feeling filled with Sasuke's avocado salad light again and he turns to push his lips onto the ones that filled him with pain and love and sorrow and joy all at once, the lips that could give and then take it all away. He felt raw and scarred, he felt new and old and blind but he could see, he felt ugly and beautiful and when Sasuke brushed his fingers on the skin that showed through his jeans and his blue planet eyes opened in an eclipse of darker moonlight and the blond boy whispered that yes, he would be with you, because there was no other way, because you are all that's left, and I love and hate you for it.  
  
He heard Sasuke's tinker bell laughter now, but it was soft, softer than his, and when he looked into the black holes of Sasuke's eyes, he knew, he knew it, that there was in deed light in there.  
  
====  
  
Electro-shock waves were singing up and down Naruto's body, filling the void filled with contracting muscles and rush hour veins with light like rainbows in a blue sky, he gasped, arching into and onto the body that held him tight. A hiss left his lips, body shuddering, no; he pleaded, no, not... not that no... not... yet... God!  
  
"Yes," said Sasuke in a voice that Naruto knew would haunt him even when he was sleeping and he screamed arching and arching until he thought that his back was going to break, until he thought that his spine would snap in two...  
  
He screamed, eyes closed and he could swear that afterwards he heard the snapping of his own muscles as it tried to ride the convulsions in his body.  
  
Sasuke waited for Naruto to calm down, wanting Naruto to feel only him as he filled him over and over again, he coaxed Naruto to open his eyes, and delved into the deep blue he never wanted to be with out. Naruto cursed, fluently, his mouth free enough to let the words he tried so hard to keep in flow out, the insanity of it... the... intensity... this was...  
  
A ghost of a smile against the pale thin skin of Naruto neck, and the blond felt the burning sensation inside him that signaled his beloved's completion.  
  
"I love you..."  
  
Barely a whisper and Naruto mewled.  
  
"Love... love... you..." And blue eyes fluttered close to fall into slumber, the bruised smile on Sasuke's lips grew larger and he brushed a familiar tasting kiss onto Naruto's moist forehead. He rolled over and held onto the hand he'd grown accustomed to holding.  
  
====  
  
Sasuke dreamed of his brother's hands.  
  
He dreamed of the soft whispers Itachi gave him when they were younger as he told him about the stars and the suns and the moons that lived in the sky.  
  
Itachi would give him kisses made from out of tangerines and apples, he'd feed him words like cotton candy clouds and stories like black forest cherry cake, whipped cream and bleeding cherries over Sasuke's hands that begged for more. He'd give him roses that smelled of fresh rainbows and orchids that felt like dancing in the rain.  
  
Itachi told him stories of how he used to be a great runner, about how he was the best, about how he wished for Sasuke to see him, to please, please see him, and Sasuke smiled a blind smile and he whispered for more of Itachi's words, because in his days of childhood, Itachi was all he ever saw.  
  
He felt the white of his milk glass skin, he smelled the earth from which life blossomed in his brother's hair and heard the light that flowed from Itachi's heart and his own bleed for it, for more of it, for Itachi to please never stop because he was the only thing, the only most important thing...  
  
They gave him back his eyes.  
  
But that was what blinded him.  
  
His brother was who he knew from without his eyes, his brother was his brother, but those eyes were not him.  
  
Blood red eyes looked down on him, dead and cold, like those stories of a broken angel falling from heaven, a story that Itachi glorified in the forever nights that Sasuke used to live in.  
  
And his heart quivered, deep in his chest, and in that chest he felt an emotion that he could not place when he was in the arms of his brother, a feeling like a trapped bird trying to escape from a too small cage, a feeling like the exploding of a balloon, it was the fear that blinded men, that kissed children goodnight as their angels turned around and left, falling off the clouds of cotton candy, black forest cake and tangerine apples.  
  
"Don't worry."  
  
Sasuke's mouth moved, but no words came out, he closed his eyes and imagined rainbow flowers.  
  
"I'll protect you."  
  
He curled inward, trying so hard to fill the void in his body that those Red Eyes stole away, he felt the orchids that were dancing in his hands, felt them cripple, then fold.  
  
"I won't let them take you."  
  
A word, a word he so wanted to use, he need to use, but it wouldn't come out, a word that was stuck in his throat filled with swallowed rain drops and burning acid.  
  
"I'll never let them take you."  
  
And when Itachi finally let go, he saw who they were; the people who had given him life, the people whose window eyes devoured him, the people who colored his wall the same red that were Itachi's eyes.  
  
Sasuke snapped awake, feeling the dream fingers wrapped around his heart, and he forced his own body to relax, his heart fluttering painfully in his tight chest. It's just a dream. He thought. His parents were still alive. He reasoned.  
  
Still alive.  
  
====  
  
When Sasuke woke up again, it was to the sound of Naruto's harsh breathing and the tossing and turning of one that is delirious and incased in the shadows of nightmares. Naruto twisted and turned, he moaned and called out names Sasuke has never heard before and clutched at the sheets Sasuke kept meticulously clean.  
  
The dark eyed boy stood up, moving over to the kitchenette that the hotel had ingeniously provided almost automatically, forgoing the fear in him that told him to run as far away as possible. His heart felt weak and his mouth dry. Sasuke knew what was wrong with Naruto, he knew that the demons that were flowing in his blood called for more of the vile poison that the boy he loved shoved into his veins.  
  
Sasuke set to work on a ginger and rice soup. He grabbed a bag of jasmine rice from off of the counter and poured grains of pure white into a pot small enough for the both of them, he washed the rice over and over again until the water was no longer a pale sickly white and was almost clear. He skinned ginger roots and chopped them up into long shoestring strips, and then he moved on to pour water into a pot and placed that beside the near boiling pot of rice, he stared at it for a while before sprinkling in the strips of ginger, almost as an after thought.  
  
Sasuke took a look at the quivering boy and closed his eyes, pretending that he didn't care about Naruto, pretending that he was someone else. His heart murmured a protest against his chest but he ignored that too, feeling it curl in distrust of him and crumple up, almost just to spite him.  
  
He brushed his ginger scented fingertips over the tops of Naruto's spiky hair, the soft pink skin of his lips and the sharp looking whisker scars on the boy's pale cheeks. He grabbed the satiny blue covers and draped it over Naruto's body, praying to a God that he used to believe in to please, please save him, to please let the demon inside get exorcised.  
  
Sasuke took Naruto's hand in his, listening to the whimpers of a broken boy, closing his eyes to the image of Naruto's body, limp yet tensed, like a broken toy that was still whirling desperately to get its owner's attention.  
  
The boy with hair like raven wings stood up, smelling the sweetly deep scent of rice in the air and the dizzying tang of ginger that followed it.  
  
====  
  
Naruto stayed asleep in the mornings and to the evenings, he woke up often just to call out Sasuke's name and grope for his warm body in the night. Sasuke answered his call with his body, not yet trusting his voice, a touch to the forehead, a kiss to dry cracking lips, and a barely audible whisper of his eyelashes touching the blond boy's cheeks.  
  
Sasuke stayed with Naruto all day, watching his unconscious body, leaving only to buy more food or to replace Naruto's compress.  
  
Once Naruto woke up long enough to hungrily devour food and then fall back asleep, quivering still, but quieter than he had been before.  
  
Naruto would sometimes wake up screaming, and Sasuke would hold him until his sobs subsided and all that was left of Naruto's tears were his quivering sighs and tightly grasping hands on Sasuke's black shirt.  
  
A woman with a weather roughened face would sometimes come into the room, nod once to the sullen looking boy and help him replace the sheets that Naruto had either torn or dirtied, Sasuke was grateful for her silence, grateful for her help, and he would once or twice smile at her without his eyes as he put Naruto back to bed.  
  
The days and nights passed by slowly and each time the sun rose or set Sasuke would hope that Naruto would be miraculously better, that he would be there with a smile and a stray daisy for him to touch to Sasuke's nose and then later chew on just because it annoyed Sasuke so much. Naruto got better and better, and though there were improvements Sasuke kept wishing for more, but not too much; the paranoid superstitious parts of him prevented him from doing so and thus he waited with bated breathe the awakening of his sleeping beauty.  
  
====  
  
Naruto woke up to the smell of ginger and roses, the feel of a slit of light pouring down on him like warm honey kisses through a slightly opened window that let in the sounds of a busy city, a radio blasting in the street, a woman singing the blues with a powerful voice like the north wind, and the honks and zooms of the cars that passed by.  
  
He turned his pale head to look over at another boy, his body twisted in a sever-looking position, curled up in a couch that Naruto distinctly remembered being pushed up against a wall.  
  
He rose, tiredly, painfully, and he felt as if his body had not belonged to him for sometime; like a ghost had used his unconscious body to party and sing and dance until it broke and collapsed on the floor.  
  
Timidly he walked to where Sasuke sat, face white like moon-stars, cheeks flushed and sweet looking on his angled face. He felt like a ballet dancer, walking up to a sleeping wolf in a play about red hoods and baskets filled with food. He smiled slightly, and his lips split and bled and a taste like licking a handcuff filled his mouth  
  
He plucked a daisy from the vase near his bedside table, and tapped Sasuke on the nose with the yellow middle like a fairy god mother waking up a Cinderella from a tear-filled dream.  
  
Sasuke's midnight sky eyes opened and he met Naruto's blue moon ones in mid- smile.  
  
His eyes widened, comically almost, and Naruto felt himself get dragged into the warm body that he missed for so long.  
  
"Wakey, wakey..." He muttered, giving Sasuke a kiss despite their morning breath and a little spot of drool.  
  
"Thank you, you mean." Sasuke countered, filling his whisper voice with rubber swords of play fighting.  
  
"Thank you." And Naruto winked up at him and placed the long green daisy stem in his mouth.  
  
====  
  
Started: May 12, 2004  
  
End: May 14, 2004  
  
Edited: May 15, 2004  
  
====  
  
Thanks:  
  
Neo Discord, Illusive x Peace, Dinelutz, Kal, Lost in a Reverie, Lostlily, Kaiyo no Hime, somebody else, Kisu, Watermelon Gal, Kashshaptu, Kuriko, Yanagawa Hanako, EmeraldHorse88, and Sandy.  
  
Yami no Ichigo thanks all the people who have responded to her words, she believes all of you are angels (even the ones quite a bit loopy from pills, because Yami no Ichigo was loopy too, darn Tylenol, when she started this, so she very much sympathizes) and wishes you all sweet dreams flavored with tangerine apples, blue-eyed Naruto skies and ravens with Sasuke's wings.  
  
Thank you.  
  
====  
  
Notes:  
  
I was so surprised when people noticed and loved my work. I was, and still am, even more surprised when people told me that this was a dark fic. ;;; I believe it was Lost in a Reverie who informed me of this. I'm both grateful for her/his information and slightly taken back. Have I really been writing so much angst and darkness that I have forgotten how to write happiness, has it been so instilled into my system?? ;; ah, well, all the more reason to prove myself wrong again and try as hard as possible to write this genre called: "light fics." I hope my ending is at least a little bit happy... because I spent a lot of time on that... 


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